by Patty Jansen
Then looked back to the hub, where Ezhya’s daughter stood, looking lonely and abandoned. “What about her?”
“Cory, hurry up, the building is secure now, but Taysha is furious. I’m getting a lot of bad language on the comms. He’s let it be known that you refused to accept his writ and all troops loyal to him will want to kill you.”
I’d also just stifled his chance of taking the job he so desperately wanted, not to mention killing some of his personnel and taking his woman without even being capable of using her for the only purpose he’d wanted her for.
Damn, what was wrong with this man? And Sheydu hadn’t answered my question. Although I already knew the answer. She didn’t care about the girl.
A deep anger welled up in me. How could a little girl like this be left alone? Why hadn’t she come with Ezhya to the wedding? She was the heir of Ezhya’s estate. She would have been more than welcome in my apartment.
I ran back and took her hand. “Come.”
“Why? You said that my daddy would come back when you fixed the machine. You fixed the machine. I want him back now.”
“Come on, we have no time for arguments. I’ll explain later.”
“No.”
Veyada looped an arm around her waist and lifted her, struggling and all, over his shoulder. “He says you come. That means you come.”
Chapter 15
* * *
RAANU STARTED screaming. Veyada slung her further over his shoulder where she hung with her backside in the air, her fists pummelling Veyada’s back. We ran into the corridor, past the guards who still didn’t seem quite sure what to do after their instructions had suddenly changed. I was also guessing that those instructions didn’t include how to deal with a screaming child.
There was a lift cubicle at the end. Sheydu went in and Veyada dragged in Raanu, who was still screaming and struggling against his grip.
The doors shut.
“Shut up, brat,” Sheydu said while operating the lift panel.
“I’m not a brat! I’m not a brat!”
“You’re behaving like one.”
“Let me go, let me go let me go!” She hit Veyada’s back. Her face was red with exertion.
“Veyada, let her go,” I said. The lift started moving down.
Raanu pushed herself up and stared at me. Her nostrils were flaring.
“We can’t let her loose. She’ll attract attention to us,” Sheydu said.
And she won’t attract attention like this? “She won’t. She is a smart girl.” I met Raanu’s eyes. “Do you understand that? He will put you down, but you have to be quiet because there is danger.”
Raanu looked at me, her eyes wide. Somehow through the entire struggle she had managed to hang onto her dirty rag doll.
“Who are you? You’re not in Daddy’s association. How come you can order Veyada around?”
I chose to ignore that question. To be honest, I wasn’t quite clear of where I stood with the two guards myself.
Veyada set Raanu on her feet. He checked the safety on that fearsome gun he’d taken off her and shoved into his belt.
She faced him with her back straight. “That’s mine.”
“That’s no weapon for a little girl.”
“I know how to use it. Daddy taught me.”
Ezhya was an ace sharpshooter. I suspected she probably knew how to handle a gun better than I did.
“Your daddy would never forgive us if something happened to you because of that gun.”
“I can defend myself.” She stuck her chin in the air.
“People will shoot at you if you have a gun.”
“Just stop arguing,” Sheydu said. “You can’t have the gun, end of story.”
“You’re nasty.”
“You’re a spoilt brat.”
“I’m not.”
She turned around to me, and then seemed to slump.
“Where is Daddy? Why isn’t he with you? You said you came from Barresh. That’s where he went.”
Fortunately, the lift doors opened before I had to make a decision whether to lie or tell her the truth. We came out in the building’s entry hall. At least twenty or so guards were standing around in small groups looking confused.
Sheydu and Veyada stepped out of the lift, apparently confident they weren’t about to be shot.
Raanu hid behind me.
“They’re not Daddy’s association,” she whispered, using a pronoun form that I’d hardly ever heard anyone use, and definitely not while addressing me. It was for people who were part of a rival association.
I said, “Come, take my hand. We’re going to quietly walk through this hall and not look at anyone.”
We needed to cross it to get to the station—presuming there were trains, presuming we’d be let onto them.
“No, they will kill us.” She clamped her arms around my waist.
“Stop this nonsense.” Sheydu whirled around at her. “Shut up, brat. Do as you’re told.”
“She’s scared.” Someone had told me that Coldi children had no ranking and didn’t derive any respect from their parents’ status. For a child, the Inner Circle had to be a frightening place to grow up.
“We don’t have time for this nonsense. Just pick her up and carry her.”
Veyada turned around, ready to do just that.
“No, don’t touch me!”
“Wait.” I stepped in front of Veyada.
He glared at me. I glared back.
There was a tense moment in which I wondered if he’d attack me, but then he retreated a step and looked down.
I breathed out relief, not sure what this backdown of his meant. Damn, I didn’t want to mess up Ezhya’s relationship with his guards, but it looked like that was already happening.
I put a hand on Raanu’s shoulder, hoping she’d listen. “We’re going to calmly walk out of this hall and you’re going to be quiet and behave nicely. These guards don’t know me and will be looking at me in my funny suit. If you walk next to me, they won’t see you.”
The guards were already looking at me. Some exchanged glances. They looked to me like any other Inner Circle guards. They even wore Ezhya’s red sash and based on that, I would have thought they were friendly. But I trusted her instincts more than mine.
She responded by taking my hand. “I don’t know what they’re doing here,” she whispered to me. “They’re not daddy’s guards. I’ve never seen them around here.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on, mashara,” I said in a low voice. “Who are these guards?”
“Most of them are Taysha’s,” Veyada said in an equally low voice.
“Wearing the sash?”
I met his eyes and saw in them what it meant: the noises we had heard earlier in the building had been of a coup in progress, and we had thrown the process in disarray by activating the command key. Hence the confusion. The guards were suddenly getting strong orders from the hub again, and now they didn’t know what to do anymore.
But the fact that they’d come in here meant that there’d be a bloodbath somewhere in the building.
Thayu, Nicha. I shivered despite the heat. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Keep going and hope we can get out of here.”
“What about the command hub?”
“Ezhya’s key will have triggered further lockdowns. The hub will be his for at least a few more days. We can’t stay that long anyway. The rest of the building will be Taysha’s, and his guards would shut us in. You need to get out of here as soon as possible. Our work is done until the Exchange returns.”
Shit. That had
been way too close for comfort. A few more days. Was that worth the risk to my life? Worse, had my stupidity harmed Thayu?
Sheydu increased the pace. I understood that we badly needed to leave that hall, but I had trouble keeping up with my heavy gear. All this traipsing around in high gravity made me feel that as soon as I hit a bed, I’d fall asleep and stay down for a whole day. My entire lower body ached, but I forced myself to keep going.
Not fast enough for Sheydu’s liking. She ran ahead, urging us along.
Veyada called out to her, “Come back here. We protect the Delegate.” There was an oddly sniping tone to his voice.
Sheydu shot him a glare, but waited for us to catch up. Her face said, He’s too slow.
Damn it. I’d risked my life for the key, but it might have been too late, because everything was falling apart.
We ran through the long passage and arrived at the station just as a train pulled in. While we walked down the stairs to the platform, it stopped. The doors opened, letting a huge contingent of guards onto the platform. A whole bunch of different guards ran in from behind us, weaving past us and taking the stairs two steps at a time.
The two groups met at the bottom of the stairs. Fist fights broke out. There were shouts, and a weapon discharged. Guards around us fired back.
Raanu screamed. She threw her arms around my waist. I almost tripped with the sudden weight.
“Come.” Veyada pulled me along. Down the stairs, onto the platform. We ran, doubled over, past a knot of hand-to-hand fights.
There were people down on the ground. We had to step over a few of the bodies. I was torn between wanting to stop and check on them and wanting to ignore them. Some were beyond help, their clothes burned off and the skin underneath blackened.
Raanu hung tight onto my suit, burying her face in the fabric. She was crying inaudible words. I held my gloved hand on her head in an attempt to both hold her down so that she remained covered by me, and to shield her eyes.
That blood bath I’d been wondering about?
It was right here.
Sheydu reached the very edge of the platform. She jumped onto the rails. Veyada handed her Raanu and, after eying the train, I unceremoniously slid down after her. Discharges flashed over our heads.
We ran into the tunnel, where it was dark and hot. I couldn’t see anything with the biometrics display inside the helmet. Raanu tripped a few times and I had to use all my strength to haul her up. That strength was waning with every step. I was sweating in my suit, not coping, worried when a train would come and flatten us. I was gasping for air, never getting quite enough.
Where the hell were we going?
My legs ached, my head pounded. I was afraid to ask the guards to stop and afraid to keep going. Purple spots danced in my vision. For a second, I blacked out—
—Sheydu had disappeared from where she’d just been running in front of us.
Crap. I stumbled to a halt. Purple dots danced in my vision.
Veyada pulled me aside into a niche in the side of the tunnel.
“Train coming?” I panted. I had to slow down, or I was going to faint.
Raanu gave a frightened squeak. I pulled her against me, bracing for the rush of a passing train.
But there was none. Instead, Veyada turned the handle of a door in the darkness of the alcove. It opened with a creak and groan. A rush of cool air wafted out. We went in.
The passage into the rock was uneven, narrow and, when Veyada had shut the door behind me, completely dark.
Sheydu flicked on a light and then Veyada added his, casting stark shadows over rough-hewn rock walls.
We started moving again, down the passage, which went further into the earth. It was much cooler here. I wanted to take off my helmet, but Sheydu kept going.
We walked and half-ran. At one point, the ground rumbled. Raanu gave a squeak and I expected a cave-in, but Veyada behind me said only, “Train.”
After having covered a good distance, the passage widened out into a cavern where the floor was more even.
Sheydu finally stopped here.
I sank down on a rock ledge and took that horrible hot helmet off my head. My hair was wetter than it would have been had I jumped in water.
The air in the tunnel was cooler than I’d experienced anywhere since stepping off the shuttle. A breeze wafted over my skin, making me shiver. A wave of nausea rose in me. I leaned against the rock behind me, closing my eyes until it had passed.
The passage led into the darkness, going down. A humid breeze came from that direction.
“Where are we?”
“Aquifer network,” Veyada said.
Sheydu had pulled out a reader and was studying the screen. Veyada went to look over her shoulder.
Raanu sat next to me, putting her hand on my arm. “You’re all wet.”
“Yes.” I leaned my head back against the rock. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry for being wet, you silly.”
“I’m sorry for . . .” I wasn’t coping very well. My body was under stress.
“Are we going to go into the tunnels?”
“I think so.”
“But . . .” Her eyes grew wide. “Daddy says you shouldn’t go into the tunnels. When it rains, the water comes up suddenly and sweeps you away.”
Sheydu gave her a shut up sort of glance.
I nodded, glaring back at Sheydu. Was it really so hard to be nice to a child? “I know the aquifers are dangerous, but it’s the only way we can get out.”
I had no idea where we were going, even if we were going anywhere and if there was any point going to where we were going. “You have to be brave, right, for your daddy.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Daddy wanted me to watch the hub.”
“The hub is safe, for now.” Or so I hoped. “It was not safe to stay there.” Not with a take-over in progress.
She drew her knees to her chest and looped her arms around them, staring into the distance. “I’m hungry.”
Maybe, I was, too. The doughy meal in Taysha’s apartment was a long time ago. I always noticed that I ate a lot when I was on adaptation. Damn, I hoped that we were going to arrive where we were going soon. My head was swimming. I hoped someone where we were going could give me medication.
Sheydu and Veyada were discussing directions.
“Can we go back to the army base from here?”
“There’s no point in going there,” Sheydu said. “Without Asha, there will be no transport off the surface. Not from the army base at least.”
Shit.
And the airport in Third Circle was closed. Then how was I going to get home? Worse, how was I going to survive?
She met my eyes for an intense moment, and then looked down.
I breathed out heavily.
Thayu had my medication.
My tank was running low on coolant.
Without Exchange we wouldn’t know what was going on in the rest of the city.
No one would know where we were.
I might as well be dead.
Veyada said, “We’re going to attempt to reach one of the open aquifers so that we can have radio reception. According to Sheydu’s map, there should be one not too far away. We can rest there, and get some food.”
“Food sounds great.” Trying to be cheerful. In my current state, I’d have a hard job holding any food down.
Soon after we started walking again, the passage joined an even wider passage, where a concrete walkway ran along an underground river. The water was dark, softly churning, the surface oily and dotted with debris from the rain. Trails of debris also lined lower section
s of the path.
I wondered what time it was and if daylight had come yet. My timer was in the pocket of my inner suit and I couldn’t reach it without taking off the outer layer.
Raanu walked silently next to me. Strands of hair had escaped her ponytail and were plastered to her forehead. Her hair was dull, having lost much of the typical Coldi lustre, a reliable sign that she was well and truly worn out.
We kept walking. The small stream became a bigger stream and then a smaller stream again. There were racks on the walls of some passages, structures about as tall as me that hung from hooks in the rock. They had shelves of fine mesh where mushrooms grew. The sharp acidic scent of them was much stronger than I had ever smelled in the markets in Barresh.
Then we met a man coming our way. He wore a loose shirt tied with a cloth belt, and loose, three-quarter-length pants. He carried a basket and when he saw us coming, he jumped to the side and pushed himself against the rock wall, looking at the ground.
These Inner Circle guards had a reputation, didn’t they?
A bit later, we came to a cavern where a couple of women hanging off the walls in harnesses were chatting while harvesting mushrooms. They fell quiet as soon as we entered, spying on us from their perches with dark, glittering eyes.
The passage widened up further, and through a ragged natural hole in the ceiling I could see sky: yellow-tinged blue with pink streaks of cloud. Dawn, then.
After a couple more such caverns, we came to one that opened right out. The river bed widened and shallowed, the river banks became vivid green with fields of crops. A couple of people worked the soil at the far end of the canyon, oblivious to our presence.
A number of houses stood jammed against the rocky wall. Where the canyon joined the underground passage there was a dam. Water pooled on the canyon side, deep and smooth as a mirror. Droplet trails trickled from the overhanging rock onto a stony beach.
A plain shack stood against the gorge wall, deep in the shadow of the overhanging rock. It was here that Sheydu led us.
The inside of the shack held simple furniture, a low table and a couple of backless benches. And sleeping mats. I peeled off my suit while Veyada inspected a cupboard against the back wall. My clothes underneath were entirely soaked with sweat.